The company formerly known as RIM (BlackBerry now) has finally launched its two new smartphones based on the new BlackBerry 10 OS, the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10. Following industry trends, the new OS focuses on touch, despite the fact that Q10 is a standard full QWERTY messenger smartphone.

A couple of first hands-on and reviews have nothing but praise for the new BlackBerry devices but it remains to be seen if consumers and sales will tell the same story.

The BlackBerry's first full-touch BB10 OS based Z10 is built around a 4.2-inch 1280x768 screen (adding up to 356 ppi) and its full dimensions are set at 130x66x9.3mm. These dimensions make it, sort of, bigger than the competition. It weighs in at 138 grams, which is pretty decent number. Behind the 4.2-inch screen ticks a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU paired up with 2GB of RAM. The Snapdragon CPU and pretty high amount of RAM are enough to run circles around BB10 OS and provide quite good multi-tasking experience, as far as we could pick up from those early hands-on and reviews.

The rest of the specs include 16GB of internal storage expandable with a microSD card, 8-megapixel rear snapper with TimeShift that can record 1080p video, an HDMI port, 802.11bgn WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, LTE support (depending on the market) and NFC. Blackberry also pointed a lot of attention to, what they call, an advance touchscreen keyboard since the Z10 lacks BlackBerry's prominent feature, a hardware QWERTY keyboard.

The BlackBerry Q10 on the other hand will appeal to loyal RIM fans as we are looking at a standard messenger smartphone with full QWERTY keyboard. Featuring a square 3.1-inch AMOLED 720x720 screen (330 ppi). The BlackBerry Q10 allegedly features the same chipset as the Z10 so we are looking at a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and 2GB of RAM. It features an impressive stainless steel frame and edge-to-edge glass on the front which certainly makes it the most impressive messenger smartphone that we have seen so far.

According to early info, the Z10 should be available in the UK as of tomorrow, Canada on 5th of February for CAN $149.99 (with three-year contract), while it is expected to hit the US carrier Verizon in March for US $199.99 with a two-year contract.

The Q10, on the other hand, is yet to be fully detailed but is expected to arrive sometime in April.

Remember Samsung’s smug and cheeky “sheeple” ads targeting Apple users? The company is now using a similar approach to take on BlackBerry devices, portraying them as corporate workhorses, unpopular with their users.

The ad is set in the offices of a fictional mobile game developer, working on their next big title, Unicorn Apocalypse. The ad shows developers and other staff members using BlackBerry devices for work and indirectly mocks their lack of features. Meanwhile the ad also features Galaxy Note 2 and S III devices and promotes their security features.

Since security is a major selling point for RIM handsets and Samsung is using the ad to promote its SAFE technology, which allows consumer devices to be securely hooked up to a company network and used as work devices.

Although RIM devices are still relatively popular in business circles, they are losing some of their appeal as the competition is catching up and seizing chunks of the business market. The Canadian outfit is pinning its hopes on BlackBerry 10, which should debut soon.

It appears like there's some really healthy interest in Research in Motion's upcoming push as the company is nearing the launch of its brand new Blackberry 10 line.

RIM's shares jumped by 17.3 percent, which is attributed to optimism surrounding the upcoming launch. Apparently, this is courtesy of National Bank's analyst Kris Thompson, who boosted the price target from $12 to $15, prompting others to do the same.

It is said this is the highest level RIM's shares have managed on Toronto Stock Exchange since May 2012. At the same time, this is the biggest gain the company has had since April 2009, which puts things into perspective quite nicely.

Thompson rated RIM's stock at “outperform”, which does put some pressure on the company but again indicates the market's expectations quite well. This is partly due to “positive sentiment building in the industry” over the launch, but Thompson had nice things to say about RIM's management team as well.

In preparation for the launch of Blackberry 10, the OS that's supposed to save troubled handset maker RIM, the press has gotten a whiff of the Blackberry 10 line in the 4.2-inch touchscreen device codenamed London.

The device leaked earlier under the same moniker but regardless, not much info can be deduced on the leaks alone. What we do know is that the device will launch together with another device boasting a full QWERTY keyboard.

From the new leak, it is clear that RIM will stick with its traditional business-oriented design. The device features a minimalist design with front and rear cameras, the rear coming with an LED flash.

The company's eggs have been promptly laid into one basket, Blackberry 10, due to be opened on January 30. Either way, we'll see whether the 10 and Blackberry Flow UI have what it takes to get the Canadian company back on the right track.

Despite the news that it would be as late as March next year before RIM will release its new BlackBerry 10 devices, word is that the company is now accepting Blackberry 10 apps for the company’s App World store.

The company has assured developers that apps that are submitted now will be tested, reviewed, and ready to be published when the BlackBerry 10 devices are released during the first quarter of 2013. Apps submitted now will also qualify for the “10K Developer Commitment” which guarantees that developers will make at least $10,000 on apps that gross $1,000 in 12 months. The program is a big deal to developers, but apps have to be certified to have a chance at the moment.

While the push to get apps ready for BlackBerry 10 is good news for those still clinging to hope that BlackBerry 10 will turn things around for RIM, we just have to question how the company can afford any additional delays with the new BlackBerry 10 devices. From what we are hearing, the BlackBerry 10 touch screen device will arrive first, but it would be as late as March of 2013. The first BlackBerry 10 device with a keyboard could arrive as soon as a month or two after the BlackBerry 10 touch screen arrives, which isn’t good news for anyone at this point.

Troubled Blackberry maker RIM has told the world that the company built up a nice cash reserve, despite the fact its “successes” are being measured by how higher or lower than expected their losses are.

RIM’s shares surged up to 20 percent immediately after its Q2 earnings report. As grim as the report may seem at a glance, the company still managed to outdo Wall Street’s forecasted revenue and ship much more than anyone expected.

Apparently, the company owes its share jump to the aforementioned cash reserves, courtesy of collecting debts, cutting costs and drawing down the inventory. All the signs suggest the company will have enough dough to boost production of its new Blackberry 10 devices.

Many analysts were surprised to see that RIM isn’t in such bad shape everyone thinks, despite the fact last year’s Q2 profit of $329 million turned into to this year’s Q2 net loss of $235 million. Analyst Colin Gillis said “You still have revenue declining 31 percent on a year-over-year basis but it's certainly not the train wreck that a lot of people feared.”

It seems RIM has put all its eggs into a single basket – Blackberry 10. The company says it is planning on snatching away market share from its rivals and attracting users who haven’t used smartphones before, but first things first.

Well, at least it’s not the news we’ve come to expect from the troubled Canadian company, as news broke of leaked BlackBerry Bold 9730.

The guys from N4BB found the device listed in the BlackBerry App World Vendor Portal. Apparently, you can find the 9730 under the Bold section.

The company reacted quickly and said that this is merely an error on their behalf. Of course, we could believe them, but in cases like this they’re usually full of it so expect the speculation games to begin.

It is said that the Bold 9730 may be a CDMA version of the company’s quite popular, original Bold 9730. Unfortunately, the listing says nothing else and there are no specs to go by.

Seeing as how the company is aware it’s dropping into obscurity faster than Axl Rose, it’s no secret we’re seeing the Curve 9320 leak scenario all over again. This time however, the company really needs to make each device count, so we really wish them the best, error or no error.

Sources from the RIM Empire have whispered to us that apparently a new 4G LTE PlayBook is in the pipeline for release on July 31st. If this is accurate, it is news to us, as we understood that RIM was going to hold off releasing an updated PlayBook at this time.

If the news is accurate, the 7-inch display and 4G LTE version of the PlayBook will be a 32GB model that will carry a $550 price tag. It is said to offer a 1.5GHz dual core processor with 4G LTE with HSPA+. The front camera will be 3 megapixel and the rear camera will be of the 5 megapixel variety. It will use a 4800 mAh battery and will have 1GB of RAM in addition to the 32GB of flash memory. It will come with PlayBook OS 2.0 standard.

It seems that release of the new model may first be in Canada only, with Bell appearing as the first carrier in Canada to get it. It is hard to say which carriers in the U.S. might be willing to take a chance on the new PlayBook model, given the current RIM troubles and poor sales of late. Our friends at U.S. carriers indicate that they are a bit concerned about adding new RIM devices, as they just have not been selling.

The word from our sources seems to mirror what Mobile Syrup is saying here, as well.

Research in Motion’s chief marketing officer Fank Boulben has said that the company’s new phones running BlackBerry 10 software will be impressive when they arrive in early 2013.

Boulben said that the new phones will have features not found in its current offerings, most notable one perhaps being multitasking. He said the new phones will allow for “seamless” switching between apps without having to return to the home screen and stressed that the “underlying operating system is truly multitasking”.

Naturally, launching the devices is only part of the solution for the troubled handset maker, and even the launch will come a year later than analysts expected. Only then can the company start the task of turning its fortunes around, and with the competition tougher than ever, it will not be an easy one.

RIM has fallen behind the competition both tech and plain feature-wise. The company’s phone sales dropped by as much as 41 percent in the last quarter and its market share in the US melted from 41 percent in 2007 to less than 4 percent in Q1 2012.

Another important part of the puzzle are application stores, and RIM’s store has less than 100,000, which is at least five times less than Apple’s or Google’s. Seeing as how RIM won’t have much chance to remedy that until 2013, and rightfully assuming that the competition won’t sit idle, things don’t look good. Heck, even the CEO uses Samsung’s Galaxy S III.

Boulben noted that the smartphone market is still new and seeing as how U.S. customers replace their phones every 18 months in average, that is where RIM hopes to come in. He said 2013 will be the year when RIM will be present in a “larger market”.

RIM’s biggest hope for turning things around is BlackBerry 10 that is coming this way soon. We now find out a little bit more about the specs for the BlackBerry L, which is codename London, and the Blackberry N, which is codename Nevada. We are told that both units have hit final production and are coming.

The L Series will offer a screen resolution of 768x1280, with it being 55mm wide and 356 PPI. The N Series will offer a 720x720 screen resolution, with it being 52mm wide with 330 PPI. Both will use OLED screen technology, but it is possible that in the future when dubbing them down into more cost effective models, they could use an LCD screen.

The big news is perhaps the N Series or the Nevada because it will offer a physical QWERTY keyboard, which is a surprise, because we thought that only the touchscreen L Series London would be the first offering for the BlackBerry 10 devices.

The latest as far as the release timetable still sees the L series arriving in September, followed by the N series in early 2013. We hear, however, that RIM is trying to speed that up, which is probably a good thing.